Listen to this 'Talk of the Nation' topic

At the beginning of the school year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg instituted an unusual program to end poverty. It's an incentive program: one that pays for good behavior. Parents can get twenty-five dollars for attending a parent-teacher conference, kids can get fifty dollars for getting a library card. It's a controversial program, but those who support it, believe that the incentives might really work. Others think it might make people living in poverty even more dependent. The question is more of a philosophical one: should we be paying people to do things they should be doing anyway? What do you think? Are incentives a good idea?